NSW childcare least attended and most expensive: ABS

A study by the Australian Bureau of Statistics has revealed that children in NSW have the lowest hourly attendance rates for early childhood education facilities in the country. On top of this, the study also found that NSW parents pay the most for early childhood education nationwide.

The ABS study stated that of children living in NSW aged between 4 and 5, only 66 per cent were attending preschool for the federal government’s recommended 15 hours a week, compared with the national average of 86 per cent.

As for costs, NSW has the lowest number of early childhood education facilities with no hourly fee and the highest number with a fee of $5 or more an hour. Early childhood education consultant Lisa Bryant said this was due to a lack of funding from the state government.

“The NSW Government spends less on education and care than any other state or territory in Australia,” Bryant said. “Only 3 per cent of the state’s education budget is spent on early education, despite the fact that a mountain of research says participation in high-quality early learning leads to better education outcomes throughout school. It is unfair that children in NSW do not have the same access to preschool education that children in other states do.”

Despite the numbers, the NSW early childhood minister, Leslie Williams, argued that standards in NSW are not falling behind the other states’. “The data indicates that almost all children in NSW are enrolling in a preschool program in their year before full-time school,” Williams told Fairfax Media.

Earlier this month, Williams announced the government would be investing $24 million in long-daycare centres, allowing them to receive $450 for each child enrolled.

Bryant does not think this will amount to much. “The NSW Government has also underspent on [its] own budget allocation for early education for the last few years, which is bizarre, given the little they allocated it,” she said. “Correcting the lack of funding for preschool education should be a bipartisan policy for both major parties.”

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